The top states that would be hit are California, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts and Washington D.C.

Science programs in America may take a very hard hit if sequestration of federal funds takes place, according to a new study.

The study, conducted for the Aerospace Industries Association by Center for Regional Analysis Director Steve Fuller, shows that large cuts in employment in U.S. science programs could affect scientific progress and even non-scientific jobs across the country.

Currently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 1,082,370 U.S. citizens work in the life sciences such as biology. However, if the fiscal cliff's sequestration of federal funds becomes a reality, 31,000 of these citizens could lose their jobs.

"The 31,000 figure does not include the indirect job losses, such as subcontractors, suppliers and vendors, or the induced job impacts," said Fuller. "Induced jobs are those supported by employee's spending on goods and services, so these are unlikely to be STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) type jobs but rather retail, consumer services, education and health, construction and those types of occupations.

"The direct jobs are clearly the immediate losses and encompass most of the STEM-type jobs. There will be some subcontractor job losses, including some STEM type jobs. For DOD contracts in general, subcontractor jobs are about 26 percent of the total where the direct jobs are about 30 percent. The remaining job losses, 44 percent, are induced."

Furthermore, a potential $56.7 billion cut to the Department of Defense (DOD) would eliminate 14,982 science jobs out of the total 325,693 lost. Another $59 billion cut to the U.S. Geological Survey would mean another 15,980 science jobs lost.

Matthew Hourihan, director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), further added that certain states like California would be hit the hardest with a potenial $11.3 million loss. The other four states in the top five included Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts and Washington D.C.

An even more troubling outcome pointed out by Hourihan would be that American science would be set back by about a decade.

Another issue is grant proposals. Scientists will spend more time writing these grant proposals to keep their labs running and staffed rather than working on actual science. Also, a cut in federal spending could mean a $586 million loss for the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and a grant proposal success rate drop from 22 percent to 16 percent.

I agree with you on the consensus that the globe is warming, but there is not even close to a consensus on the source of this. Everything is a hypothesis and nothing has been proven. Climategate and other similar "cover ups" only prove that there continue to be anomalies in the data that, once smoothed out, support CO2 as the catalyst for warming. I'm sorry, but as long as those anomalies exist, you cannot claim the model is correct.

You're wrong. There is a concensus that Humans are causing it. Lying doesn't change that - it's widely provable (check any reliable source). C02 and Methane are also, by consensus, agreed as the chief causes. There is not a consensus on all the mechanics - scientists actually rely on models to see what does and doesn't agree with reality. It's an iterative approach where assumptions are made, discarded or modified to ensure bad models are dumped and good ones improved. It will decades (or more!) to piece together the massively complex system we call weather to get predictions that are always close to perfect.

Your link is FUD in the context you used it. If you read the whole debate summary, the topic was a debate motion entitled "Global Warming Is Not A Crisis". It does not claim that global warming is not happening nor does it deny that Humans are causing it - it debates only whether it's a "crisis" to the Planet. Our best understanding indicates creeping temp rises for decades to come if we do nothing.

But thank you for proving my point that people rely on FUD in this topic. The science is far different. There is a ~95% consensus that global warming is occurring, and a consensus also on the fact that Humans are driving it. So where does all the doubting come from? How can so many people ignore 95% of the scientific community and favor a tiny minority?

Many people just believe what they want to believe. They'll find evidence to support that belief and ignore all other evidence to the contrary. This is not scientific enlightenment - it's the ignorance of the masses and the pandering of their dishonest politicians.

"Everything is a hypothesis and nothing has been proven". The preponderance of evidence to date begs to differ. Of course, it's far easier to pretend that doesn't exist and then mangle the intention of the Scientific Method's meaning of hypothesis to suggest science is still playing guessing games. That's an unattainable level of certainty as you are well aware in a area of science reliant. If you're not aware of this, you're not in a position to define science to actual scientists.

Climategate! Oh, wait - that was a bunch of FUD too. http://www.salon.com/2012/10/24/climategate_scient... Trumped up out of context emails that led to puffy cloud hopes that this would be the end of global warming. It's been debunked for a long time - why are you still dragging this out other than to evoke some emotional anger at the naughty scientists (that did nothing naughty at all).